The Voice Radio and TV Rock AUBG Campus

This week AUBG welcomes on campus The Voice Radio and The Voice TV. If you are somewhere around BAC these Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, you might see a shiny girl with a microphone going around and chasing students. Dayana Hristova, the host of “Your Voice,” will be in front of BAC from Nov. 11 till Nov. 13, and the students, faculty and staff will have the opportunity to greet friends, family or just enjoy being aired on TV.

Together with Hristova, the host of The Voice Radio George Kostov – Jorj also visited AUBG to meet with students. A chat, organized by the SPJ Chapter at AUBG, was held in Delchev Auditorium on Tuesday, Nov. 10.

Kostov briefed students on the competition between radio groups at the Bulgarian market, paying specific attention to the role of the Best Success Services (BSS) media group. The company is currently the owner of four Radio stations – The Voice, Vesselina, Vitosha, Magic FM – and two TV music channels – The Voice TV and Magic TV.

Kostov defined the challenges media groups face today. Businesses, new demands, competition, customer engagement, new technologies and trends, such as the Internet, are factors that force radio stations to constantly change and adapt to the new reality.

“The radio today is a supportive media,” said Kostov. “If 20 years ago people became famous through the radio, today Internet is the primary tool to do so.”

Customer engagement and target audience are crucial for any radio station. Keeping track of your target audience while elaborating on new ideas in order to attract advertisement are key to success in this business, according to Kostov.

Behind the scenes work by the programming department is the driving force of any media. When it comes to the radio, the daily program – selection of genres, artists, timeline – is extremely important because “it might seem irrelevant but this is what distinguishes us from other radio stations,” said Kostov. “If I promote songs that I personally think might become hits sometimes in the future, I am going to lose our audience.”

George Kostov explaining media groups challenges to AUBG students

The opportunities for students interested to work in a radio station are many. Kostov himself started as an assistant manager in 2006. A year later he became the administrative director of BSS. Only since 2011 he is a host at Radio The Voice.

“I had no intention of hosting a talk show,” said Kostov. “My colleagues thought I have a nice voice, that’s why I do it as a second job.”

“It was interesting to understand that the radio is just like any other product that people are trying to market,” said Stella Ivanova, a third-year student at AUBG.